Today begins NaNoWriMo. My plan is to blog each of the NaNoWriMo days this month. These will be short blogs filled with tips for me or inspiration. Along the way I’ll keep track of my progress.

You may find this month’s blogs dull. I should be back to my monthly updates next month.

For today, the beginning of NaNoWriMo, I want to remind myself that while there are many paths to succeed at NaNoWriMo there are also several well-worn paths I’ve taken to fail. Let’s not fail this year.

Ways to Fail NaNoWriMo

• Live on coffee and sugar. It always seems tempting to forgo healthy food and live on caffeine, but don’t. By the third week I will be a gibbering, paranoid wreck if I don’t eat healthy.
• Make up the daily word count by shorting sleep. Unless I am in the final few days, this action will set up failure by destroying my ability to produce work in the following days.
• Socialize instead of writing at NaNoWriMo events. It’s all well and good to organize events for others, but prioritize your own writing at these events.
• Delay getting writing done until nightfall. If I delay until I am too tired to write, I’ll either lose words or be tempted to live on coffee and short sleep.

Today is Day One. I have no words yet. But stay tuned!